President Donald Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping shake hands at a press conference following their meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
Artyom Ivanov | TASS | Getty Images
President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are likely to speak this week, a senior White House official told CNBC on Monday.
The expected discussion follows a series of flare-ups between Washington and Beijing that threaten to derail a tentative trade agreement that the two economic superpowers reached just weeks earlier.
The two leaders could speak one-on-one “very soon,” though probably not today, the official said on condition of anonymity.
Trade between the U.S. and China was effectively crushed in April, when Trump ratcheted blanket tariffs on Chinese imports up to 145% and Beijing issued its own retaliatory duties. The two sides agreed to scale back most of those tariffs for 90 days, following an initial round of trade negotiations in Switzerland in mid-May.
But each nation has since accused the other of undermining the agreements struck in Geneva.
In recent weeks, the Trump administration has accused China of slow-walking renewed exports of critical minerals to the United States, while Beijing has called out Washington for issuing a warning against using Chinese chips.
On Monday, a Chinese Commerce Ministry spokesperson accused the U.S. of trying to “unilaterally provoke new economic and trade frictions, increasing the uncertainty and instability in the bilateral economic and trade relations.”
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